Wonderland
by damnedscribblingwoman
Summary: The only thing it takes for someone to cave in is time and imagination — and often not much of either. Blaise has both of them in spades.
1. Abandon all hope

**Originally written for Interhouse Fest (2016). The original prompt was: He's either her guard or her interrogator during the war at the Malfoy's house. He never expected to like her this much. (Luna/any male Death Eater [not a Malfoy])**

 **Thanks to my beta Raistlin for all the help. Any remaining mistakes are my own.**

 **Warnings for torture, violence, abuse and mentions of sexual assault**

* * *

He moves slowly among the trees, choosing his path with care. The light of the full moon does not reach the forest floor, but he keeps his wand unlit and ready at his side. All around him there are sounds of crunched leaves and broken branches, muttered curses and shouted challenges. Other men with masks like his flash in and out of existence, grotesque shadows come to life with each jinx and hex.

Blaise recognises their urgency, but he does not hurry. The wards have gone up. Whoever was caught inside will remain inside, and the rest is long gone.

He walks out of the tree line, leaving the commotion behind. Away from the canopies, the full moon floods the landscape with a soft glow that bounces off the Black Lake.

The witch is sitting on a boulder by the water, her blond hair the only spot of colour in a world of dark blacks and soft blues. She's not trying to hide, and Blaise does not try to conceal his approach.

"Stopped for a rest, Lovegood?"

Her fingers tighten around what's left of her wand, but she smiles up at him — a soft, sad, self-defeated smile.

"Professor Trelawney once saw that I was going to die under a big oak tree." There's blood in the corner of her mouth, and her right leg rests at an unnatural angle. "But I think I'd much rather die out here. It's so very pretty."

He crouches in front of her, just out of reach. "I'm not going to kill you."

"Because there's no oak tree? That's hardly an impediment. Darjeeling tea is notoriously unreliable."

Putting his wand away — hers is now little more than kindle — he runs his hands along her leg, and Luna stifles a scream when his hand finds the bone sticking out just below the knee.

"Dead witches tell no tales," he says, willing his magic to stitch the leg back together.

An elaborate death mask hides his features, but he's not surprised that she recognises him. "I'm not a canary, Blaise," she says, her words strained. "You can't make me sing." She can't stop a yelp when the bone snaps back into place.

"You'd be surprised."

Getting up, he holds out a hand to help her do likewise. She hesitates for a moment and then takes it. He shifts his body weight just slightly to compensate and only just sees the glare of the moon on the blade of the dagger before she lunges at him, aiming for his torso.

Luna has surprise and fear on her side, but Blaise is both faster and more experienced at avoiding pain than she is at inflicting it. Without letting go of her hand, he spins her in place, grabbing her other wrist and trapping her against him. Luna struggles to get free, but he's taller and stronger than she is, and he doesn't let up.

"What was that supposed to accomplish?" He increases the pressure on her wrist. "Drop it."

She doesn't and he can't fault her for it. In her position, he wouldn't either. But they find themselves in somewhat of an impasse. She can't move and he won't. His wand is in his pocket, and both his hands are currently busy restraining the little fool who just tried to stab him.

Understanding the futility of the status quo with that Ravenclaw cunning that still hadn't stopped her trying to attack a Death Eater with something as pedestrian as a knife, Luna lets her legs collapse under her and the sudden dead weight almost throws him off balance. Almost. He catches himself and her in time, and throws her down on the ground with a little more spite than is merited, and a little less effectiveness than he would have liked. The witch rolls and scrambles to her feet, keeping the offending knife pointed at him.

"You're a smart girl, Luna." He draws his wand with slow, deliberate movements. "How do you think this is going to end?"

"Maybe you'll kill me." She tilts her head, pensively. "Maybe you'll let me go."

"Maybe the moon will fall out of the sky." Luna jumps at the sound of the man's voice and she whirls in place, her fingers bone white as they coil tighter around her poor excuse for a weapon. "Maybe Potter will be king. Maybe riches will grow on trees." There are two of them — hooded fiends that move with the careless arrogance of predators.

Luna backs away from them, edging closer to him.

The devil you know.

"Bit of tail giving you lip, Zabini?" Avery is the bigger of the two. Old money and an even older name. A family tree that has inbred itself out of all usefulness.

"Nothing I can't handle."

Luna shrieks as the dagger turns into a snake, and shakes it off with frantic movements, to the hilarity of the masked men.

Avery circles the witch, eyeing her with hungry eyes that shine behind the grotesque mask. "You caught a pretty little thing." She flinches when he touches her face, but there's nowhere for her to hide, nowhere to run. "You shouldn't be greedy and keep her all to yourself."

There's two of them and just one of him, but the likes of Avery and Goyle do not worry Blaise. The day a Zabini cannot stand up to the rabble may yet come, but not this night.

"Imperio," he says with a flick of his wand. Luna's shoulders relax and she stands up straighter, no longer shying away from Avery. "Lovegood, come here. Finders, keepers, gentlemen."

There's a soft smile on her lips, her expression relaxed and content. Her Imperiused self resembles her actual self — cheerful and distracted, not a care in the world.

"You won't always have Bellatrix's protection, boy." Goyle Sr is much like his son — short and stout, and fond of idle threats. "Maybe then you'll learn to respect your elders."

His elders, but not his betters — though asking either of them to make that distinction might be stretching their limited cognitive abilities too far.

"A chilling prospect, I'm sure." He wraps an arm around Luna's waist and puts his wand away. "Send any other prisoners to Malfoy Manor." Without giving the men time to reply, he touches the Portkey inside his pocket.

* * *

He drops his cloak on the house-elf without stopping, Luna trailing behind him like a ghost.

"Is Draco back?"

The small creature hops next to him, trying to keep up. "No, master Zabini. And mistress Bella sent word not to expect her until next week."

"Tell Draco to come find me when he gets in."

"Yes, master."

The halfbreed disappears with a pop.

The Manor is quiet these days, with Voldemort holding court elsewhere and Bellatrix busy up and down the country. It suits him. As long as he keeps providing them with enough intelligence to keep them happy, they'll leave him alone to do as he pleases without asking questions. It's a long enough leash that he doesn't mind the collar around his neck.

Paintings and tapestries give way to bare walls as they descend deeper into the lower levels of the Manor. They walk down a spiral staircase, past muffled moans behind heavy wooden doors — broken minds and shattered bodies that still linger on. Some of them are his handiwork. Some of them are Bellatrix's. Narcissa calls them the lucky ones — the ones deemed useful enough that they're kept alive even after they've spilt all their secrets. Blaise thinks the opposite is true.

The bottom landing is several feet below the surface, almost as deep as the Manor is high. He can feel the soft humming of his wards before he reaches the single door.

The fire flares up in the huge stone fireplace when they walk in, and the lamps come to life along the walls. He drops his mask and gloves on the massive desk by the far wall and turns to Luna, who has stopped next to the stone table that takes up most of the centre of the room.

She doesn't move as he walks up to her, doesn't flinch when he tilts her face up. The war hasn't been kind to any of them, not even to the girl who never had the sense to see the bad in anything. There are dark shadows under her eyes, and her face looks gaunt in the wavering light.

"Hop on the table," he says, and she does — the perfect puppet on a string. "Lie down." Enchanted ropes slither up the sides of the platform and coil themselves around the witch's wrists and ankles, and around her waist.

Avery would leave her Imperiused, a biddable doll who would spread her legs or get down on her knees at a single word, but Blaise has no use for an animated corpse, and not just because she can't tell him what he wants to know under the spell.

"Finite Incantatem."


	2. There once was a girl

The moment the fog lifts from her mind, her fight or flight reflex kicks in and Luna reaches for a wand that's not there, only to realise she can barely move, kept in place by ropes that coil tighter around her the harder she tries to get free. She thrashes and pulls at the straps, driven by a panic that leaves no space for reason — no space to stop, no space to think, no space to care that her movements only make the damn things fight back, wrapping themselves tighter around her like living creatures, digging deeper and harder into skin and muscle. She kicks and pulls and tries to keep breathing, which becomes increasingly harder as more ropes squeeze the air out of her lungs.

"Luna." His voice sounds far away, and she barely notices the warm hand on her chest, close to her throat. "Luna, look at me. Stop fighting, you little fool."

She latches on to his voice — deep and familiar and terrifying — and forces herself to stop, even though every muscle in her body is yelling at her to keep going. The ropes relax around her just enough to allow her to breathe and she can't quite bite back a sob. She should have made them kill her back in the forest.

"Good girl," he says, nudging her chin before moving towards the desk and out of her line of sight.

"Honestly, Blaise." She isn't sure whether her voice is shaking because she's afraid he's going to kill her or because she's afraid he will take his sweet time doing it. "Is this about _Alice_? How long have you been holding that particular grudge?"

He doesn't reply and she doesn't know if that's because he didn't hear her or because he stopped paying attention. Knowing him, probably the latter.

They go back, the two of them. Back far enough that she knows better than to expect to leave that room alive.

It had started with a castle and two children and a book. He had dropped it, or forgotten it, or left it — stuck between a rock and a pygmy puff's nest — and she had picked it up because the pygmy puffs had no claim to it, and if books were springing out of the ground like mushrooms, she wanted to know what they had to say.

It was a book about a girl who had followed a white rabbit down a rabbit hole, and the notion struck Luna as such a reasonable thing to do that she kept on reading, quite unconcerned either by the classes she was missing — Transfiguration and double Potions — or by the pink pygmy puff that had decided the top of her head was a most desirable place to be.

The book made such an impression on her that by the time she finished reading it she set out to colour all the black and white illustrations — maybe she had picked the book too early, and it hadn't been fully formed yet. She spent many an evening laboriously working on it, adding blues and purples and yellows where nature had not chosen to provide them, making Alice and the Mad Hatter, and all the other inhabitants of Wonderland come alive on the page. And when she reached the end, she turned the book over, opened it on the first page again, and started drawing on all the other pages, the ones that only had words where images were clearly called for.

She was thus engaged in the library one rainy afternoon — far away from Madam Pince, who had strange and limiting notions about books and crayons — when a shadow fell on her. She looked up to find herself the object of scrutiny of a very serious-looking Slytherin boy. Without so much as an introduction, he flipped the book closed, picked it up and hit her over the head with it.

"Don't take my things."

And without saying another word, he turned on his heels and sauntered away.

Maybe dismissing the pygmy puffs had been premature. Here was their champion, come to reclaim their rightful property.

"Wait, I'm not done." Luna swept the crayons haphazardly into her bag and ran after him, earning a tutting from Madam Pince, whose conservative ideas about crayons went hand in hand with some very old-fashioned notions on the propriety of running in libraries.

Luna tried to express to the boy that he was welcome to the book, if only he would let her finish. It wasn't quite done, she had plucked it too early — she was very sorry about that, by the way — and it was imperative that she finish. She had just drawn the Queen of Hearts. The entire later section of the book stood at a disadvantage if he didn't let her finish. Merlin only knew what that would do to the plot.

He glanced at her sideways without stopping. "Go away."

But Luna was not to be dismissed in such rude a manner by a boy who had been so derelict in his duty as to leave the book unattended to begin with.

"Accio _Alice in Wonderland_." Not many second-years could pull off that spell, but Luna's smugness did not survive its encounter with the boy's first-class wand work and superior disregard for consequences.

His spell threw her back against the wall with enough force to knock all the air from her lungs. The book fell down with a thud by her side, and when she tried to move she found that she was stuck in place. Not only that, but she couldn't breathe. She couldn't move and she couldn't breathe, and lights started dancing just at the edge of her vision, and soon she would pass out, and where had all the air gone?

He strolled up to her, regarding her quizzically and showing no inclination to break the spell. Increasingly panicked, Luna tried to speak, to ask him to stop, to say it wasn't funny and that he ought to let her go this instant, but no sound came, and her progressively frantic attempts to breathe drew no other reaction from him than an expression of detached curiosity, such as one might display before a butterfly pinned down on a piece of cardboard.

Just then someone laughed in a nearby corridor, and the sound of voices and approaching footsteps drew his attention away, and the spell broke. Luna fell to the ground, gasping for air, one hand desperately tugging at her tie. She flinched when the boy crouched in front of her and reached for the book that still lay by her side.

"Stop following me."

And with that, he turned and left, and this time Luna did not follow.

That night in the Ravenclaw common room as she listened to Cho Chang wax poetic about the deep, soulful eyes of Cormac McLaggen and how they took her breath away, Luna could not help but reflect that today she too had met a boy who took her breath away, and she couldn't say she saw the appeal.

Luna was smart enough to recognise the folly of continuing to pester a boy who went around hexing people all willy-nilly. It was one thing to leave books unattended, and quite a different one to throw people against walls and stun them in place, and stop them breathing. It was rude, and uncivilised, and scary. Too scary.

But try as she might, she could not stop thinking about her unfinished work, and how the book would never realise its true potential, and all because of her.

She took to keeping tabs on the boy, trying to summon the courage to approach him again. Maybe if she did a really good job explaining, he would come around and let her finish what she had started. After all, she only had a few chapters to go. It really wouldn't take very long.

Finding the right moment was not easy. Blaise — _"An arrogant, pompous prat, like the whole lot of them_ , _"_ Ginny Weasley had volunteered along with his name — was often in the company of other Slytherins, and Luna did not fancy her odds against superior numbers. Since she did not much fancy her odds against just him, either, it took her almost a month of hesitating and hovering and holding back at the last minute to finally make a move.

It was a pleasant sunny day and Blaise was sitting by himself under a tree by the lake, book in hand. Luna plucked up the courage to walk all the way to the nearest tree, but no further. She stood there for a moment, unsure of how to proceed.

He said, without looking up, "Lovegood, if you don't stop hovering, I'm going to drown you in the lake." She had no doubt that he would, too. Blaise reached blindly inside his bag and took out _Alice in Wonderland_ , setting it down beside him. "Finish the bloody thing and stop following me around."

With a squeal of delight, Luna hurried to grab the book before he changed his mind. She carefully sat down next to him and opened the book where she had stopped. Hopefully the Queen of Hearts hadn't had time to get up to much mischief.

It was the beginning of an unlikely friendship.

For weeks after that day, wherever Blaise was, Luna was sure to be found — in the library between classes, sitting in out of the way stairwells, making use of otherwise empty classrooms. He'd find a quiet corner to read, and not long after she'd find him and fish _Alice_ out of his bag without bothering to ask.

"One day I'll put a defencive spell on it, and you'll lose a hand doing that," he said on one such occasion.

Luna sat down against the opposite banister, opening the book on her lap and rummaging through her bag for the pencil case she always carried around.

"Nonsense. It would take me twice as long to finish if I had to do it with my left hand."

But she was no longer in any particular worry to be done. To the untrained eye, Blaise did not have much to recommend him — he was reserved and selfish and easily bored, to say nothing of caustic, curt and sometimes cruel. He was easily the less friendly boy Luna had ever met. But he was also smart and diverting, and he never called her Loony, which many a nicer person was wont to do.

Luna liked him exceedingly.

When she was done putting the finishing details on the last page of the much abused tome, she stared at it for a long while, finding that now that it was done, she could not be happy at its completion. She was startled out of her musings by a thud, and looked down to find a book at her feet. She picked it up and glanced over at Blaise, who was sitting at a nearby desk.

"If I see so much as crayon near it, you'll wake up in the middle of the Forbidden Forest," he said without looking away from his novel.

Luna smiled, all her unhappiness gone. "I don't understand your objections to a bit of colour."

"There's a special circle of hell for people who draw on books."

"I'm sure you and Madam Pince would have much to discuss on the subject."

It was a curious, strange, funny affair, this thing between them. No one would have imagined there to be much in common between Luna Lovegood and Blaise Zabini, but they were often to be found in each other's company, puzzling Ravenclaws and Slytherins alike, and providing much food for gossip and speculation in the teacher's lounge — Professor McGonagall suspected the Slytherins of playing a cruel prank on the Lovegood girl; Professor Flitwick argued that no one in his House would be so daft as to be outsmarted by a Slytherin ( _"No offence, Severus."_ ); Professor Sprout said it was a very lovely thing to see students of different houses getting along so famously; and Professor Snape was heard declaring more than once that he was not the least bit interested in the social lives of teenagers, and if the lot of them insisted on discussing it like a bunch of old biddies, he'd thank them to leave him out of it.

It didn't take Luna very long to realise that this boy with the serious eyes and sharp tongue was much like _Alice_ — not quite ready, not quite finished, missing colours and images and detail.

It was as if he was constantly play-acting at being a person — mimicking feelings and sentiments and reactions — and not often very hard, and not always very well. He pored over books, examining them laboriously for clues and tips and understanding. He read novels and poetry and plays (by Muggles and wizards alike), struggling to understand people, to see them as they saw themselves, using them like crayons to fill in all the missing parts of himself, trying their paper souls on like ill-fitting clothes — foreign and uncomfortable and soon to be discarded.

He had no conscience to speak of, and not always a desire to pretend otherwise — because he was bored, because it was inconvenient, because that's how the stars happened to be aligned — and Luna, whose own oddities made it so difficult to make friends, had not thought to hold his oddities against him. He was who he was and she hadn't minded. For a very long time, she hadn't minded.

She minds it now. She minds it now a great deal.

Blaise moves back into her line of sight and looks down at her, his eyes much as they had been on that first day — dark and serious and unfeeling.

He places a number of vials at the edge of the table, shiny nightmares living inside houses of painted glass.

"Tell me about the Order of the Phoenix," he says, and Luna wishes she could empty her brain of all the secrets she can give away.

"I won't tell you a thing." Brave words that might have sounded braver if her voice weren't shaking.

He gently touches her face, his thumb brushing away a tear.

"You will tell me everything." He raises his wand. "Crucio."


	3. Time and imagination

Luna thrashes wildly against the ropes, well past caring that it's a losing battle. Her shrieks and howls bounce off the stone walls and low ceiling of the small room, which amplify them tenfold until her voice becomes an almost physical presence in the room — solid and savage and all around them. Her body spasms, all her nerve endings on fire, and soon she will become too incoherent to answer much of anything. Blaise allows himself a few more self-indulgent seconds and then stops, quite as suddenly as he started.

The witch struggles to breathe in between sobs, recoiling when he places a hand on her head.

"Look at me." Her hair is like silk under his fingers. "Luna," he says, forcing her face towards him. "Open your eyes or I'll make you open them." She look at him then, through bloodshot eyes that look too big on her small face. "Where is Potter hiding?" She doesn't answer and he doesn't expect her to. It's early still. "How did you get into Hogwarts? Who got you in? Where are the Order's headquarters?"

She takes a deep, steadying breath, but her voice still shakes when she speaks.

"A better friend would kill me."

"A better friend would tell me what I want to know."

Luna's laughter is a sob masquerading as a chuckle. "I guess that makes us both very poor friends."

His thumb draws lazy circles on her temple and he can feel her relax ever so slightly.

"I guess it does."

Her body arches with a violence that even the enchanted ropes struggle to contain, and for a second no sound emanates from her throat, her face frozen in a contorted mask of pain. And then the world unfreezes and animalistic screams are wrenched out of the witch by the unrelenting assault of the Unforgivable.

* * *

The garden around him is all loveliness and warmth. The sun is high in the sky, its rays finding their way through the canopies of trees where singing birds have made their homes. All around him there's a world in bloom — alive and vibrant and full of colours.

He finds her under a tree close to a cliff's edge, swaying back and forth on a swing. There's a picnic blanket on the ground not too far from her, and books lie about haphazardly, planets on the orbit of a small bookcase where still more tomes have set up residence. There's a picture frame on one of the shelves, and when Blaise walks by he recognises Potter, and Granger, and some sort of Weasley. Luna is also in the picture, waving at the camera in some kind of lion-shaped monstrosity.

He walks towards the swing. The Luna trapped in his room of horrors has decided to eschew the bright colours and animal-shaped head-gear of her youth in favour of the dark fabrics and practical braided hair more suited to fighting (and losing) a war, but the Luna who lives inside her head has no use for practicality. Her blond hair flows freely down her back, and her simple blue dress would not be out of place at a tea party.

"I like what you've done with the place, Alice."

She snorts, glancing up at him. "Lazy metaphor, Blaise. And inaccurate. I'm not Alice. I'm the White Rabbit."

She moves to one end of the swing to make room for him, and he sits down next to her, reaching behind the witch to grab the other chain and pushing back with his feet to get it going again.

"I passed out?" she asks without looking at him.

"Yes."

"Shouldn't you wake me up?"

He should, but not yet. "In a minute."

It was sloppy of him to let her lose consciousness so early, but since he has, he'll allow her a moment's respite. They have nothing but time, the two of them, and he's no amateur. Push too hard for too long and a mind snaps under its own weight.

"You don't belong here," she says. "And it's very rude to walk into someone's brain uninvited."

More rude or less rude than using them as a pincushion?

"Shall I wake you up, then?"

She bites her lip, looking away. "In a minute."

Blaise chuckles, making the swing go higher. "Coward."

* * *

It's part instinct and part science — when to plunge the knife, when to twist it, when to stop. Not enough pain to kill her, just enough pain to make her wish she were dead.

Keep asking the questions, over and over again.

 _Where is Potter hiding? How did you get into Hogwarts? Who got you in? Where are the Order's headquarters?_

 _Where is Potter hiding?_

Over and over, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. Questions that are props masquerading as motive, because Blaise doesn't care. Who kills whom, who wins the war — he doesn't think about it and he doesn't care, even as he asks his questions. Potter could show up at his doorstep tomorrow with He Who Must Not Be Named's head on a silver platter, and that would elicit no more response out of Blaise than a soft pang of regret that his fun was at an end.

And Blaise _is_ having fun.

The boy who never feels a thing has discovered that if the dial is turned up high enough, even he can't fail to notice. He cherishes his collection of human toys until they break, and then replaces them with new ones — soft and pliant and full of life. And he finds them beautiful even as he rips out their wings.

Draco comes in a few hours after their arrival and Blaise's wards don't stop him. He has been expecting him.

"Was there anyone else?" Blaise asks, petting Luna's hair. The witch mumbles something indiscernible between sobs.

"No, just her," Draco says from his spot by the door. He never walks in any farther into the room. "Dolohov is dead."

"No great loss." Pity Avery hadn't followed suit. But Blaise has no great interest on whether any of his brethren lives or dies. "I need Veritaserum. Can you get your hands on some?"

Draco raises an eyebrow at the request. "Since when do you use Veritaserum?"

Blaise moves from the head of the table to the side and lowers his face so it's at the same level as Luna's.

"I don't normally," he says, brushing a strand of hair from her face. "But Lovegood here is determined to prove she's more stubborn than me, and I'm determined to prove her wrong."

She tries to say something that might have been, "Blaise," but it comes out more a sob than a word.

"Shush, sweetheart." He strokes her hair with gentle fingers. "Don't interrupt your betters." He glances up at the other wizard. "Well?"

Draco shakes his head. "I'm out."

How remarkably convenient.

"No matter." Luna gasps when he yanks her hair back. "I daresay we'll manage tolerably well without." Movement draws his attention back to the door and he calls out to Draco. "Stay if you like," he says. "We're just getting started."

Draco pauses on the door frame, looking back over his shoulder, and someone less familiar with him might have blamed his deadly pallor on the stark contrast between his fair complexion and the black Death Eater robes.

"I thank you," he says in a steady voice, "but no."

Blaise chuckles, letting him go. Draco has no stomach for it, very few of them do. It never fails to strike him as funny that this pack of faceless monsters, most of them murderers or rapists or both, should suddenly turn squeamish when stepping into his playpen. They'd have no qualms about holding her down, forcing her legs open and taking turns raping her — that's violence they can understand, even violence they can appreciate, but not this. Philistines that they are, they have no appreciation for this.

Bellatrix alone among all of them understands, and she's mad as a hatter. Blaise does not think himself mad. Unusual, perhaps. A little twisted, sure. Cold-blooded, most certainly, even in a crowd such as this. But not mad.

Just curious and undeterred by scruples and bored. Merlin, he's bored.

The whole world exists in pastel tones and soft accents, and he used to think he'd set himself on fire just for the novelty of it.

He's enjoying this war like he's enjoyed nothing else in his life. The boy who stared forever unimpressed at the world around him has suddenly discovered that people are a far greater source of entertainment than he previously gave them credit for. Apply enough pressure to even the dullest of them, and suddenly everything seems a little bit brighter and sharper and more defined.

And Luna has always been a bright spot of colour in a dull, grey world, even before he started sticking pins in her brain.

"Look at me, darling," he says, his thumb trailing down her chin to the hollow of her throat. "Let's play a game."

She gasps, suddenly unable to breathe, her eyes wide and horrified.

"Where is Potter hiding?"

She tugs frantically and ineffectually at the ropes tied around her wrists and ankles, and opens and closes her mouth, trying and failing to draw breath.

"How did you get into Hogwarts?"

Her lips slowly turn a pale shade of blue, all colour drained from her face.

"Who got you in?"

Her hand catches the end of his robe and she latches on to it as if by holding on tight enough she might make him stop. He laughs at the small act of defiance, cutting the spell before she passes out.

Luna takes desperate breaths that bring on a coughing fit, and Blaise allows her a moment to recover.

"Shall we try that again?" She whimpers as he buries his fingers in her hair. "Tell me what I want to know and I'll stop."

* * *

The sun is past its zenith and the cacophony of tweets and chirps has been replaced by the rustling of leaves brought about by a gentle breeze. It's still spring in the garden, but there's a slight — almost imperceptible — chill in the air.

The swing stands lonely and still.

Blaise walks up to the picnic blanket and sits down next to Luna, who glares at him.

"You're having far too much fun with this," she says peevishly. Her porcelain complexion has turned ashen and her eyes have lost some of their spark, but the Luna who lives inside Luna's mind is still much like the girl he remembers from Hogwarts — delicate and dainty and droll.

"I'm sorry," he says.

"No, you're not."

"No, I'm not," he allows. "But I know that I should be. Does that earn me any points?"

"Not a single one. I hope your brain gets eaten by a herd of Gulping Plimpies."

"That's not very charitable."

"Well, I'm not in a very charitable mood."

He can't help but laugh at her cross expression — an unusual display of gaiety in one not naturally demonstrative, but Blaise is in high spirits. He's enjoying himself immensely. Enjoying himself enough that he can afford to be charitable, even if she won't.

"Come here." He puts an arm across her back and Luna lets him pull her to him. "It's not as if you didn't know you befriended a fellow of unsavoury character and deplorable morals."

"Your morals aren't deplorable, Blaise. They're non-existent."

He chuckles, kissing her forehead. "No doubt, dove, but you're making my point." Something catches his eye. "Why is there a floating teapot?"

The unmistakable device hovers nervously by the bookcase like a crazy, oversized bumblebee. Luna follows his gaze. "Where else would one keep tea?"

"Where indeed."

"Would you care for some?" She beckons to it and the teapot glides towards them in the company of two tea cups, which trail behind it at a more sedate pace atop matching saucers. The pot stops a short way from them and the spout faces each cup in turn and, seemingly pleased with them, lifts a bit higher in the air and pours its contents first in one and then the other.

"Do you offer tea to all the men who come walking into your brain?" Blaise asks, seizing the cup closest to him. Luna chooses a ginger snap from a floating tin that wasn't there a second ago.

"Only the handsome ones."

"You think I'm handsome?"

"Sure. I think you're a very handsome psychopath."

"Sticks and stones." He raises the cup to his lips, immediately hissing when the scalding tea touches his mouth.

"Too hot?" Luna asks innocently.

"Too hot."

"Well, I dare say that the very least you deserve is a burnt tongue."

In the spirit of getting even for such a spiteful remark, Blaise grabs Luna's wrists and raises her hand to his mouth, taking a bite of her ginger snap.

"Thief," she accuses.

"Minx," he shoots back.

They chat and laugh and tease, and enjoy their tea with the careless ease of old friends. It's a relaxing, comfortable interlude, and Blaise does not begrudge her a small respite. They have nothing but time, the two of them, and he doesn't mean to rush. All his toys break, and she will too, but not yet, and not soon if he can help it. She's precious to him, this girl who never had the sense to stay where he couldn't reach her. Not precious, perhaps, in the more usual "in love with her" sort of way, or family sort of way, or even friendship sort of way. She's precious to him like a favourite toy, to be cherished and treasured and kept safe — from others, if not from himself.

In a perfect world, she would never answer his questions and they'd go on happily like this — tea parties, and shared books, and guttural screams torn out of a soul ripped to shreds. A never-ending bazaar of delights that start and end in his small room underneath Malfoy Manor.

It's nonsense, of course. It can't last. It won't last. He's not that lucky and she's not that tough. No one is.

The only thing it takes for someone to cave in is time and imagination — and often not much of either. Blaise has both of them in spades. She'll talk or die or lose her mind, or all three — in no particular order, though death must necessarily come last.

She'll be gone and he wonders if he'll miss her. If he'll mourn for her. If he'll feel her absence. He toys with the idea of being the sort of person who would, while not really expecting to.

"Tell me a story," Luna says, dunking a biscuit in what's left of his tea, hers being all gone.

"What sort of story?"

"A happy one."

Blaise thinks for a moment, grabbing a Florentine from the tin that's now on the blanket behind them.

"There once was a boy who was unlike other people. He was quicker and smarter—"

"And more modest."

"Shush, my story. This boy was all those things, but he was not happy. In fact, he wondered how anyone could be. One day he met a girl who told him that to be happy he only had to be himself. He thought that was excellent advice, so he followed it. The end."

Luna snorts. "That's a very bad story."

"Well, then you tell me one."

The witch helps herself to the rest of his tea and puts the cup down besides her own.

"There once was a girl who met a very wicked boy. Despite his wickedness, they became fast friends. One day, the girl made other friends who were not at all wicked. The boy tried to get the girl to give away her new friends to his boss, who was a very evil man."

"What did the girl do?"

Luna shakes her head. "Not a thing. She held on to all the people in her life. Even the disreputable ones."

If there is a hell, Blaise knows he'll burn in it for all eternity. He's sure he deserves no less. Closing the space between them, he kisses her — a soft peck on the lips that is gentle and brief and unapologetic.

"That's a very foolish girl."

"Yours is a very foolish boy."


	4. A big oak tree

In the end she answers all his questions, one by one. The whos, the hows and the wheres all come tumbling out of her in rapid succession — words that are barely words, thick with tears and sobs and guilt. They hollow her out until there's nothing left of Blaise's bright doll but a broken marionette.

Time and imagination. It never fails to do the trick.

He runs his fingers through her hair and leans down, kissing her temple. "Well done, sweetheart."

She does not react, not even to shy away from his touch. Her face is turned away from him, eyes open and unseeing, home to tears that fall silently and freely. Her torrent of words has slowed down to a trickle of, "Kill me," over and over — a mantra that's a prayer, that's a plea.

He too feels a little deflated, a little drained, crashing down from his high a little harder than usual. He slumps down on the chair by his desk, all adrenaline replaced by a deep melancholy. The world — for a few hours so bright and colourful and alive — is slowly returning to normal, all of it soft contrasts and sepia tones. Luna's tireless litany continues in the background and he knows he ought to end it. He _will_ end it. He owes her that much. But not yet. He's not prepared to let her go just yet.

He jumps out of his chair, the curse on his lips before he even raises his wand. The Unforgivable breathes new life into Luna's crippled body, which contracts and convulses, racked by the anguished screams that fill the room. Blaise doesn't hold back, turning the dial up as high as it will go, and it doesn't take more than a few seconds for the witch to pass out.

* * *

It's nighttime in the garden, but there's enough moonlight for Blaise to see the path ahead. He finds his way to the picnic site, only to discover the blanket partly hidden by the fallen bookcase. There are books scattered on the ground, ripped pages floating aimlessly above them. The broken china of the tea set orbits the empty biscuit tin, which spins slowly on its axis. Closer to the edge of the cliff, one of the chains of the swing has come loose and the other's hold on the tree branch above it looks precarious at best.

Luna is nowhere to be seen.

He turns and heads towards the trees, which look dark and threatening in the half-light. There are no sounds but those of crunched leaves under his feet. The light of the moon barely penetrates the dense canopies, but it is not long before Blaise comes to a clearing. He finds Luna huddled up between the massive roots of a tree, her arms wrapped tightly around her legs. She's silent and still, her face the impassive mask of a doll — unthinking and lifeless and empty. He kneels in front of her and cups her face with one hand, brushing his thumb across her skin.

"Can you hear me, darling?"

Luna does not respond, does not react, does not even look at him. It's as if she doesn't even realise he's there.

"I think you broke her," says a voice behind him.

Blaise jumps to his feet and turns in one swift motion. The woman in front of him is also Luna, but different. He can't put his finger on why she's different, but he knows it instinctively, the awareness of one predator meeting another. Her ruby-red lips curve into a friendly smile that does not reach her eyes, and his gaze wanders to her soft curves, wrapped expertly in a vision of red silk.

"I was hoping you'd come," she says, her girlish voice at odds with her sultry appearance.

"And why is—" The ground disappears from under his feet and he flies across the clearing, crashing heavily against a massive oak. Unable to catch himself, he falls to the ground in a heap of limbs. Before he can do more than try to catch his breath, roots and branches wrap themselves around his arms and legs and torso, lifting him off the ground until he's suspended mid-air, staring straight at his attacker.

"Well, well, well," he says, half surprised, half amused. His head feels twice its size and he can taste blood on his lips. "Alice has turned into the Queen of Hearts."

The Luna still clutching her legs to her chest remains where she is, as unconcerned by this development as she was by everything else, but the other Luna moves closer to him, the hem of her dress fluttering softly in the breeze. Her fingers trace a trail down the side of his face in what could have passed for a caress.

"You silly boy," she says. "I'm not the Queen of Hearts." The roots tighten around his body and he can't help a howl of pain when something cracks in his chest. "I'm Wonderland."

"The tea." His voice comes in short bursts that leave him breathless. "It wasn't solicitude; it was a fishing expedition. You wanted to know if I could be hurt in here."

Her smile widens, smug and triumphant. "This is a little worse that a burnt tongue, isn't it? It takes a special kind of arrogance to barge into someone's brain, Blaise."

"What are you going to do with me?" He tries to jump back to his own body — has been trying since before he hit the oak — but he's stuck.

"I'm going to kill you. But first I'm going to hurt you."

One second he can see her face and the next he can't see a thing, blind to anything but the surge of electricity rushing through his body, burning everything in its path. Feral howls of pain echo inside and all around him, and it takes him a few moments to realise that the sound is coming from him. The whole world shrinks, and he's never before been more aware of his body than now, when it feels as if his very skin will begin to melt.

It stops as suddenly as it started and he's left exhausted and panting. His throat feels raw and sore, and every inch of his body aches, but he still can't stop the peal of laughter that bubbles to the surface.

"Is it funny?" Luna asks, and never before has he wanted so badly to kiss her.

"I'm just thinking that there really is a monster inside all of us."

She tilts her head, bird-like, and regards him for a moment before pronouncing, "Not inside you. You're all monster, old friend."

He's hit by a new flood of energy that overwhelms his entire nervous system until he wishes she'd either let him pass out or kill him. It's agonising and terrifying and the funniest thing Blaise has ever seen, because he's going to die inside Luna Lovegood's brain and if that's not hilarious, he doesn't know what is. He can't even hold it against her. She outplayed him fair and square. He'd tip his hat off to her if only he were wearing one and still retained control over his limbs.

"Are you scared?" In anyone else's lips it might have been a taunt, but Luna asks as if she really wants to know, as if he's a puzzle she's trying to solve.

"Yes."

"How does it feel?"

"Novel."

The novelty soon wears off, however, and all he's left with is torment and agony, a never-ending circle of misery that stretches excruciating seconds into excruciating hours. She has no wand, nor any need for one. Her brain is her playground and she rules uncontested. The real Luna would have had misgivings about doing to him what he had no misgivings doing to her, but this Luna has no sympathy, no restraint and no pity. She's all rage and wrath and retribution, and she _will_ kill him as sure as he's standing there. And maybe it's fair, maybe it's just, maybe he's getting what's coming to him, but Blaise does not want to die. He does not want to die, even as he badly wishes she'll kill him, if only to make the pain stop.

"Just get it over with already," he says in a broken voice, the words faint and slurred.

"My poor darling." He flinches when she touches him, her fingers soft and warm on his face. "Do you want me to stop?"

"Yes." He breathes out the word like a sigh. Talking is too much effort. Everything is too much effort.

Luna's expression hardens. She lets her hand drop and takes a step back, cold and remote and regal.

"Then beg."

Blaise Zabini does not beg. He's been coddled and indulged and pampered all his life, the spoilt only child of a family both old and wealthy, grown into the powerful and influential lieutenant of Bellatrix Lestrange. He's never been told no, never been denied a thing, and he's certainly never had to beg for anything. Blaise Zabini does not beg, but he does so now, undeterred by either pride or vanity. He's not so proud that he'd be a fool.

"Please." The word catches in his throat, a rasping, almost unintelligible whisper. He runs his tongue over his cracked lips and tries again. "Please."

Her smile is sweet and innocent, and her lips soft and warm when she kisses his cheek. "Good boy," she says, like a caress.

The moment she steps back, the roots start to coil tighter around him, slowly compressing his chest and squeezing all the air from his lungs. Blaise gasps, pulling uselessly at the branches around his arms and legs, trying to free himself from their deadly grip. It's a useless exercise that serves only to exhaust what little energy he still has, but he can't stop himself. It's the instinctive terror of a cornered animal, panicked and frantic and primal.

He can't move and he can't breathe and he's going to die, but something catches his eye at the edge of the clearing. Luna's complete focus is on him and she does not see the woman behind her until she grabs her hand. She turns around and both Lunas stare at each other for brief moments — Alice and the Queen of Hearts come face to face.

"No," says the first Luna, trying to pull away, but the other Luna does not let go. She pulls her instead into a tight embrace, withstanding with ease the other woman's efforts to free herself. The first Luna's indignation at finding herself constrained becomes frantic and desperate, her angry protests turned into sobs of frustration that fail to move her captor. The second Luna whispers soothing nothings in her doppelganger's ear, gentle but unwavering, until she eventually stops struggling. The last thing Blaise sees before the world goes black is both Lunas clinging to each other.

When he comes to he's on the ground, his head raised on something soft and warm. He looks up to see Luna looking back at him.

"I would normally say sorry," she says, "but you fully deserved that." There are dark circles under her eyes and she's a little pale, but she's Luna as he remembers her — kind eyes and an easy smile and silly radish earrings.

He raises a hand, touching her face. "Does that mean we're even?" he asks.

"Not even a little bit."

No, he hadn't thought so.

Blaise sits up carefully, but he need not have worried. Whatever one Luna did, the other was at pains to mend, and he feels better than he should, no doubt better than he deserves. He's fine and he's whole, and if he's still stuck in that place, that's no more than he expects. No version of Luna would let him go — not this one, not any other. She may love him, however little he deserves it, but she loves them too — Gryffindors and peasants though they are. She'll make sure her secrets die with him.

"So what do we do now?" he asks.

"We could have tea."

"You broke all the china." There was a whole planetary system of broken tea cups.

"Oh, I'm sure I can contrive something."

"Try to contrive some milk this time, too."

"You're very demanding for someone who was just used as a squeeze toy by a tree."

"Tea with no milk is uncivilised."

They walk side by side away from the clearing. Dawn is fast approaching and it's easier to make out the path among the trees. Somewhere in that made-up garden, there is a picnic blanket no longer buried under the debris of a fallen bookcase, friend to a teapot no longer smashed into a million pieces. Blaise hopes there will be biscuits. Luna got all the ginger snaps last time.

* * *

Draco is almost at the bottom of the stairs when he feels that something his wrong. It takes him a moment to put his finger on it, but then he realises. The wards are gone. Blaise takes meticulous care of his wards. Even Bellatrix is unable to cross them unless he decides she can.

He draws his wand, slowing his step. There are no intruders in the Manor. He would have known. But those wards should have been in place and yet they're not.

Everything is quiet when he reaches the landing, and that too is unusual. Blaise does not prize his toys for their ability to keep silent. Whenever he has company, screams can be heard several levels above.

Draco opens the door without knocking and immediately sees what caused the wards to crumple. Blaise lies fallen on the ground. There's a gash on his head, probably from hitting his head on the table where Lovegood is still tied in place. Draco kneels by his side, trying to find a pulse, but there's nothing. He's gone.

He checks Luna next, but doesn't even have to check her pulse. Her face has lost all colour and her blind, unblinking eyes stare up at the ceiling, well past any earthly concerns. He glances down at Blaise before closing her eyes.

"Good for you, Lovegood."

He reaches inside his pocket for the Galleon he knows is there and wills the numbers around the edge to form the message he wishes to send. Hermione will be heartbroken, but Draco is actually relieved, and he knows he won't be the only one. Lovegood knew far too much for comfort, and no one kept secrets from Blaise for long.

Standing by the door, he looks around him one last time. His gaze falls on the bodies in the middle of the room. Blaise Zabini and Luna Lovegood. Once upon a time there was no seeing one without the other. They're a long way from Hogwarts, all of them.

Draco closes the door and makes for the stairs. He doesn't envy the poor sod who will have to break the news to Bellatrix.

 **The End**


End file.
